Guild Wars 2

I posted in the Shadow Refuge topic but I think it needs to be in the light a little more.

Nerf:
- Stealth only stacks to 12-13 seconds maximum, down from 25 seconds maximum.

For those who were complaining about Perma Stealth, this negates that, and means those who use a lot of Stealth stacking need to do so by staggering their abilities. It doesn’t change too much, but worth noting that no longer can you stack Stealth high and achieve long a duration Stealth.

Now that we’ve got a lower cap can we unnerf descent of shadows? Only other falling talent that has a cooldown is the mesmer one, and it’s much stronger.

The only real nerf comes from the fact good players always watch for the effects of stealth (blinding smoke, black swirl etc) and will be able to track where you are heading better then if you popped it all at once then went on your way. Not a huge deal and stops multi Thief SR stacking.

Vexus.5423:

For those who were complaining about Perma Stealth, this negates that.

Removes one avenue of “Perma stealth” I believe the one they are often talking about is CnD chaining + rendering issue.

Hitting someone with CnD Juuuuust as you pop out of stealth so as not to get the revealed debuff.

I dont see a problem with this tactic as you do next to 0 damage, all that needs to change is the ability to context cap points in WvW.

Frankly I dont really see the need to stealth for longer than 12-13 seconds in most situations anyways (hiding in a WvW keep perhaps?), so anything that would detract crying towards thieves is good in my books.

where is the update note about the nerf to stealth? I want the link so I can use it in a thread in WvWvW forum

Arcadius.1247:

where is the update note about the nerf to stealth?

The name of the thread is “The Undocumented Nerf” and you’re asking for the update note?

I found this nerf doesn’t change gameplay much. It does, however, result in much more forced movement. Because I can’t stack other Stealth on top of Shadow Refuge, I am forcing myself out of the Shadow Refuge circle when before I was content to stay within it and just wait. I guess since we have the extra mobility from Refuge being 10 seconds of Stealth it makes you seek out your target sooner. I sometimes would prefer to stand still, but now I just have to move.

It also reduces the effect of some tactics I’ve been using.

Everything is still possible, just much harder to pull off, which I am kind of glad about. One of my first comments to my fellow Thieves was that the lack of stacking Stealth makes bad players have a harder time compared to those of us who can adapt.

Thief is rubbish. I have deleted mine.

As a Thief, I am glad to see this change. I think how stealth was intended to actually work is fine, and trying to make it more perma is garbage. I enjoy mine without people trying to ruin the class by looking for loopholes only to later get the class nerfed in areas it should not be.

Does not seem to affect the 3 hit wondercombo of steal + CnD + backstab = 20k++ dmg in the space of 1 second. Which is a really massive issue for those of us that are not going guardian.

future patch notes could be: “We changed something. Guess what.”
seriously I think ANet should be more accurate with that.
One can be a mistake but two unreported changes related with stealth ability… it seems that ANet didn’t want to write too much into the “Thief profession changes”.

Daendur, this pretty much sums up the issue you bring up:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Why-Transparency-is-paramount-to-success/first

Karl McLain.5604:

Hi all. There was a change implemented that seems to have not made it into the patch notes from Monday that was intended to go in the ‘Professions’ section. Stealth now only stacks up to five times consecutively, meaning you can’t bombard yourself with massive stealth applications to become invisible for extended periods of time.
We’ll be including the patch note in a future update. Good catch!

Then you can fix the Shadow’s Embrance trait maybe? 1 cond every 3 sec is ridicolous at moment.

The game is young.Two month since release,it looks pretty good(not there isn’t many things to be fixed or changed). Off course theese 2 changes wasn’t forgotten in the patch notes.Those things are checked and rechecked and spelling checked and edited several times before release.
It was a little get-away-lie,which we will forgive,because we love GW2 .The “good catch” made me laugh,good joke.

Kinda find it to bad that I can’t stealth for long times now. I used stealth a lot to travel so that I could ignore the mobs, but yeah it is needed for pvp so pve gets the hit as well.

Kerishan.8460:

Then you can fix the Shadow’s Embrance trait maybe? 1 cond every 3 sec is ridicolous at moment.

Actually Shadow’s Embrace is amazing. It removes a condition from you immediately as you go into stealth (and can be used as an immobilized breaker). After this instant condition removal, it keeps removing even more conditions every 3 seconds in stealth.

Considering the tree it’s at can also grant +1 sec duration to stealths, and stealth on steal, this is an incredible trait.

Experienced the [near-]perma-stealthed experience last night in EB while running down the road from Anz to Speldan. It’s a pretty open path other than the hillside. Anyway I got 2-shotted to the downed position. If not for my new ability to go into mist mode immediately, he would have killed me before any other players approached .. and then returned to stealth mode. I lived .. usually do when I experience a thief. So they aren’t as overpowered as people tend to believe.

In other games, this idea of thief was fine. I personally would be fine with this. But would rather this BE intended rather than perma-stealth still being an on-again/off-again game design issue. Either I hover over my don’t-get-2-shotted skill button while running solo or I run blind because I KNOW what to expect.

I don’t play a thief. Regardless I say make it perma-stealth and let it alone. I would rather have a sense of “this is how thieves’ stealth works” 100% of the time rather than waiting for patch notes (and undocumented notes) to constantly change it, thinking it needs tweaking.

What I would suggest is to make stealth permanent, leave the thief’s damage and health as-is, and just make the player walk slower while in stealth. You know, like what most people imagine “sneaking” to be. Worked well for another game. (Pretty sure this has been suggested several times though.)

@deriven,i am sure now that you don’t play thief.Your proposal is stupid.
You are talking about total rebuild of the thief class.It is not about damage and HP at all.We are talking about whole traits reworked.While in Stealth Thief can stack might,regenerate initiative faster,clear conditions,regenerate health,move faster e.t.c.Also it will need rework/remove of many UI skills.Also rework/remove of many weapon skills.Are you sure that total rework is a less headache that a single ele care to defend himself from insta backstab?And again never draw conclusions from WvW.
As far as “the other game”,last time i checked in Cata,rogue was moving faster in stealth than out of stealth.I can’t talk about the Pandas expansion,i don’t play it,because obviously i play the better game.

So no Heart Seeker spammers coming here to complain about what was done to their Heart Seeker in the last updated?

I guess they were busy spamming the skill so they have no time to check what was done to it.

HS Spammers are the lowest tier of thief society.And HS+Haste spammers are the lowest of the lowest. I think that ANet must change only 80lvl to be able to join SPvP and tPvP.The lower lvl may still be able to hang in the Heart of The Mists to train at Golems,npc’s,Svanir,Chieftan e.t.c and to see the shiny armors of the others and inspire themselves.This will ensure that no FOTM by any class will be ruining the experience.
Edit:To clarify,i don’t think that HS spam is FOTM at all.They are just terrible losers.

ZLE.8293:

I think that ANet must change only 80lvl to be able to join SPvP and tPvP.The lower lvl may still be able to hang in the Heart of The Mists to train at Golems,npc’s,Svanir,Chieftan e.t.c and to see the shiny armors of the others and inspire themselves.This will ensure that no FOTM by any class will be ruining the experience.

Yeah, it’s not like one of the biggest selling points of GW2 is that its PvP is easily accessible…

it’s a right change,gw2 is a fast playstyle game and all have to according to this

Siva Mira.3546:

So no Heart Seeker spammers coming here to complain about what was done to their Heart Seeker in the last updated?

I guess they were busy spamming the skill so they have no time to check what was done to it.

What changed to HS?
I see the same damage, same tiers, same range, same init cost, same activation.
It seems to me you’re a bit paranoid sir.

Hi all. There was a change implemented that seems to have not made it into the patch notes from Monday that was intended to go in the ‘Professions’ section. Stealth now only stacks up to five times consecutively, meaning you can’t bombard yourself with massive stealth applications to become invisible for extended periods of time.
We’ll be including the patch note in a future update. Good catch!

Cool. Now can you undo the Descent of Shadows nerf since stealth doesn’t stack high anymore?

HS was changed to:

Now: It takes away your ini as soon as you click the skill.
Before: As most of Thief’s skills, it only takes your ini once you successfully performed that skill.

There was a trick to HS when you use it for map travel is by intentionally interrupt the skill before you land on the ground and by doing this it would cost you no ini. It is the only way Dagger can outshine Shortbow on the flat ground.

Undocumented nerf #3. What’s going on here Anet?

Seriously? Keep ninja-nerfing the Thief without telling us? At some point after the first few times the “oh, that seems to have not made it into the patch notes” excuse doesn’t work.

This stuff happens because the Thief mechanic is so unlike all the others that said people playing other classes have no idea how to deal with it.

Maybe I’ll just roll another class before it’s too late and they kittenstomp us completely… then not tell us.

As for Heartseeker, having the ability to cancel a skill and cause it to not have a cost while gaining the benefit of the skill is hardly a nerf. They fixed an exploit.

They’ve got a lot of little tweaks this class needs and they missed a few bug/exploit fixes. I’m sure they’ll be doubling down on their proofreading of the thief notes from now on since other classes are not in need of the same kind of changes (they’re either more obvious changes or bug fixes that have been in the works for a while).

The thief updates are not missing, they are perma stealthed. See how annoying perma stealth is

ZLE.8293:

@deriven,i am sure now that you don’t play thief.Your proposal is stupid.
You are talking about total rebuild of the thief class.It is not about damage and HP at all.We are talking about whole traits reworked.While in Stealth Thief can stack might,regenerate initiative faster,clear conditions,regenerate health,move faster e.t.c.Also it will need rework/remove of many UI skills.Also rework/remove of many weapon skills.Are you sure that total rework is a less headache that a single ele care to defend himself from insta backstab?And again never draw conclusions from WvW.
As far as “the other game”,last time i checked in Cata,rogue was moving faster in stealth than out of stealth.I can’t talk about the Pandas expansion,i don’t play it,because obviously i play the better game.

Wow you didn’t read a thing that deriven said did you? Completely unnecessary opening to your post as well.

@deriven I’ve only been playing thief a little while now but I am enjoying how nimble the thief’s abilities make him. I haven’t got high enough to experience perma stealth yet and I’m not that interested in jumping straight into PvP but I would be put off by a longer stealth in trade for slower movement just to accommodate people who may be less competent at playing the class. I think for GW2 the game hits against nearly all preconceptions of a traditional mmo and the thief is one of the best examples I feel and think it would be best served within the game sticking to this rather than bringing it in-line with “other” mmos.

I hope that’s a slightly more agreeable reply from a fellow gamer

Karl McLain.5604:

Hi all. There was a change implemented that seems to have not made it into the patch notes from Monday that was intended to go in the ‘Professions’ section. Stealth now only stacks up to five times consecutively, meaning you can’t bombard yourself with massive stealth applications to become invisible for extended periods of time.
We’ll be including the patch note in a future update. Good catch!

Seems an awful lot of Thief changes don’t make it into the patch notes. Max time on stealth and now the revealed buff thing. Just saying.

What boggles my mind is that with all the noob outcry about nerfing the Thief class you would think the Devs would want to broadcast as many of the changes they made as possible to show the community that they are listening and making adjustments as needed. Hiding nerfs is really, really weird.

Playing devil’s advocate, maybe they were trying a different model from other MMO’s who list all the changes on the patch notes. Maybe they wanted to just tweak things and see if the complaints stopped happening on their own because you know a lot of people will READ changes and then start complaining about them before they even get into the game. Maybe they expected the thief QQ to slowly die off as more changes were implemented instead of “We changed stealth for you guys” “NO Y U NO NERPH BACKSTAB!!???”

Daendur

future patch notes could be: “We changed something. Guess what.”

+1 , this gave me a smile

Hanzo.9624:

What boggles my mind is that with all the noob outcry about nerfing the Thief class you would think the Devs would want to broadcast as many of the changes they made as possible to show the community that they are listening and making adjustments as needed. Hiding nerfs is really, really weird.

Playing devil’s advocate, maybe they were trying a different model from other MMO’s who list all the changes on the patch notes. Maybe they wanted to just tweak things and see if the complaints stopped happening on their own because you know a lot of people will READ changes and then start complaining about them before they even get into the game. Maybe they expected the thief QQ to slowly die off as more changes were implemented instead of “We changed stealth for you guys” “NO Y U NO NERPH BACKSTAB!!???”

MMOs have tried stealth nerfs in the past, it always involves seriously angering players and a mass exodus when people get fed up with it. Most won’t admit that they did anything when they stealth nerf though. It almost looks like someone is trying to balance the Thief and thinks they can sneak these changes by us, but when they get caught someone goes and checks the change log and the notes and admits something was changed. If they really are trying to be secretive about it, it is probably because they fear a lot of Thieves will quit the game. I am more likely to leave over dishonesty. We shall see how many more stealth nerfs happen. It just all seems a little too coincidental.

Here’s a concept for you; the game’s new and lots of changes/tweaks/nerfs are needed at first. Maybe they actually just forgot or missed out the info? They are, in fact, only human. Gamers wonder why we are ridiculed about being over-zealous about games and why we get so much stick about being “nerds” and yet you all blow a gasket when a game (that may I remind you, you aren’t even paying a monthly subscription for) gets changed and tweaked slightly and/or the devs/team forget to tell us one little change.

The majority of us got this game and play it because we are fans of how ANet ran GW. If you aren’t why are you here? If you’re new, why are you slagging off ANet without any experience of them. I think they ran a good “shop” with GW and am willing to play GW2 because of it. The game is well thought out and fun and different from the ever increasing crowd of generic MMOs.

Stop whining and play the game or GTFO if you ask me.

@Zeroin,you bought the game few days ago and quickly become the experienced player telling us to GTFO…
We don’t need to remind us ,that we don’t pay subscriptions.Subscription is not a way you measure the game quality?We like ANet,but that doesn’t mean that we cannot criticize them.

Seriously, patch notes are a big deal. ANet has an unfortunate habit of conveniently “forgetting” to include unpopular nerfs not just for thieves but for multiple classes (Ranger’s 7% SB nerf anyone?). This is unacceptable and defeats the whole purpose of patch notes.

People would be far less angry if these stealth nerfs were transparent as they should be rather than trying to pull the wool over our eyes.

Zeveross.4320:

Seriously, patch notes are a big deal. ANet has an unfortunate habit of conveniently “forgetting” to include unpopular nerfs not just for thieves but for multiple classes (Ranger’s 7% SB nerf anyone?). This is unacceptable and defeats the whole purpose of patch notes.

People would be far less angry if these stealth nerfs were transparent as they should be rather than trying to pull the wool over our eyes.

Yep, reminds me of politicians. They need to let us know what is going on.

Who needs patch notes, when we have so good scouts, who can discover a ninja nerf like 3 minutes after introducing it?

Dagins.5163:

Who needs patch notes, when we have so good scouts, who can discover a ninja nerf like 3 minutes after introducing it?

+1
You’re clearly all GW2 ninjas. Maybe we should all bow to your ultimate prowess in this fantasy, made-up, play-time, VIRTUAL reality.

ZLE.8293:

@Zeroin,you bought the game few days ago and quickly become the experienced player telling us to GTFO…
We don’t need to remind us ,that we don’t pay subscriptions.Subscription is not a way you measure the game quality?We like ANet,but that doesn’t mean that we cannot criticize them.

I said nothing about being an experienced player, just that you need to get over yourselves. ANet doesn’t have to provide us with any patch notes OR on-going live updates to the game. I’m not judging the quality of the game on the quality of service, I’m saying that the service you so readily expect and presume will be available doesn’t actually have to be provided. Instead of taking things for granted why not enjoy the things you are fortunate enough to have?

On top of this, you are not just criticising, this topic is a slag-fest. All everyone is doing is sitting on their kitten ripping into ANet. I’d like to see them coordinate the drop of a patch or 2 before they all give ANet grief. Prime example below;

Zeveross.4320:

Seriously, patch notes are a big deal. ANet has an unfortunate habit of conveniently “forgetting” to include unpopular nerfs not just for thieves but for multiple classes (Ranger’s 7% SB nerf anyone?). This is unacceptable and defeats the whole purpose of patch notes.

People would be far less angry if these stealth nerfs were transparent as they should be rather than trying to pull the wool over our eyes.

They have released how many patches since release? I don’t know but it’s gotta be less than 5, certainly less than 10, and already they are developing “habits” about leaving things out?
These people are under pressure to try and perform so they keep players interested from the start and compete with “certain other fantasy MMOs” that have a huge head start on them and you can’t cut them just a little slack, a few hiccups, a few mistakes?

If this is the worst and biggest deal in your life, and you have time to sit here and complain about it, you’ve got a kushty life my friend and can we trade?

Nuff said I think now.

“ANet doesn’t have to provide us with any patch notes OR on-going live updates to the game.”

They don’t have to get up in the morning either, but not doing either one of those will get them far. Keeping the game updated or not will be reflected by selling your next product, or not.

Given the amount of people crying for thief nerfs not listing these nerfs is rather inappropriate.